Silver SPARTAN M001
by CharmedPluto
Summary: When a post war insurrection breaks out in the outer colonies and the famous Helljumper ODSTs aren't enough, there's only one division to turn to, the Spartans. On Hiatus
1. Chapter 1

Silver-SPARTAN-M001

Chapter 1

(Sigma Octanus IV: Shipyard Alpha; August 30th 2554)

I ducked back as bullets peppered my makeshift cover and reloaded my M392 Designated Marksmen Rifle (DMR). My HUD wines at me as my shield struggles to recharge. As a Spartan I shouldn't be scared but right now, I'm scared as all Hell. A second Spartan runs ahead of me taking cover behind an overturned LAV (Light Armored Vehicle) and unloads about half a clip from his MA37 ICWS (Individual Combat Weapon System). I peer out, risking getting hit in again before I yell, "Zero!"

He turned as I shouted, "Cover me!"

I saw a curt nod and his acknowledgment light flared bright blue on my display as I rushed further into the shipyard. The position ahead is a pillar of Titanium-A battle plating. That stuff is meant to withstand Covenant plasma torpedoes and not breach so the fact that it was taking rounds was not a problem. Also ahead was the local insurrection, our primary concern. New Intel had confirmed a suspicion I had about a month ago when our commander went missing during an aerial exhibition over Sigma Octanus. Now it was our job, SPARTAN-M Charlie Company's job, to liberate him. He's too damn important to leave to the enemy was what we were told, nothing else.

"Zero; target at your two o'clock behind that column of steel!" I yelled as two deadly plasma lances washed over the Titanium-A I was behind

"Rodger, Lieutenant; engaging target at two o'clock," Zero replied

"Don't gimme that robo-talk BS!"

"Sorry, sir,"

I traditionally roll my eyes and open fire on a squad of rebels that were previously firing on Zachary, the leader of Charlie's Oxide team. Two dropped and one grabbed his shoulder before a second shot clipped him in the face, ending his rebel carrier. With the deaths of those rebels we forged ahead. I looked around checking on the rest of my squad, I can see four other IFF tags; FOX-Z is Zero; FOX-A is Allen; FOX-SO: Sonic and right next to that one is FOX-SA: Sally; my best friends since training, SPARTAN-M Charlie-Foxtrot. After about ten minutes of firefights we'd drove the rebels back to the other side of the shipyard and the rest of us form up.

"Alright," I said, "We've pushed past the rebel gun positions here,"

Everyone right now should have their maps opened up which as my HUD confirms they do.

"We've gotten past the Titanium mills, here," I click the mills which highlight themselves green.

"One final effort is all that remains, we just have to push to the office buildings, which are here, here, and here," The three places I mentioned each glows as a mark them out.

"Zach, take Oxide to office number-three,"

His light burns blue on my display.

"Blaze, take Red team to number-two; Foxtrot will hit the first,"

"Yes Lieutenant,"

We all move out, supposedly they were using the offices to keep civilian and military POWs (Prisoners of War) in them, not only was it our job to liberate Captain Shadow, we were to save everyone we can at this point.

"Charlie Company, execute!" I order

Zero and I pushed forward to the office building marked '1'. I slide behind an ammunition crate…probably not the smartest thing ever but oh well; we make do with what we have.

"Sonic, can you confirm and heat sigs inside?" I said

"Talk about a hot zone; that office could be a gods-damned volcano for all I know,"

"Hostile count?"

"Stand-by…"

I hated standing by…it just wasn't something I was very good at.

"At least fifteen hostile contacts, gods, that's a lot of bad guys," Sonic said

"Copy that, Allen, Zero on me, were going in," I reply.

Two acknowledgment lights flashed on my display and FOX-Z and FOX-A moved into formation, we were in our signature tri-kill formation, which Sonic Shadow and I did a lot back before Shadow and I became Company Commanders.

The three of us moved in and immediately ran into a rebel machine gunner. I dropped into cover behind a sheet rock wall, Zero ended up behind a desk. Allen never made it to cover, the M9 machine gun ate through his shield until finally it ripped through his armor and sprayed the Spartan's blood all over the ground, which he fell over in.

"Allen's down!" Zero shouted

My display confirmed, his tag was the same FOX-A but now instead of light blue with an arrow over him, it was now a red X where he lay dead. I erased his tag from my display and moved his name under the ever-growing list of 'missing' Spartans. Only nine of them were actually missing; Fred Linda Kelly and William of Spartan II Blue Team, and Ash Mark Holly Olivia and Dante of Spartan III Saber Team. I didn't care which generation of Spartan they were, a Spartan was a Spartan, nothing more nothing less, and they were brothers and sisters to us, so our dead always tore at us to some degree.

I growled but stowed it, there would be time for revenge later. I blind fired my DMR, which wasn't the best idea, since the damn thing was only single shot. The rounds stopped firing for a moment; which during I peered around the corner. The gunner was down in a pool of blood and the others were falling back.

"Zero lets go," I said

Zero moved to Allen's corpse and started tampering with his chest plate.

"Executing protocol?" I asked

Zero nodded, "We've officially got twenty minutes before Allen gets his funeral pyre, he'll take this entire office building with him,"

"He always wanted to go out with a bang," I sighed

Zero stood and motioned me forward, "Twenty minutes isn't a lot of time lets go,"

The two of us moved deeper into the building.

"Kamile, mark hostages," I ordered my armors AI

"Yes Lieutenant,"

There was one in the room ahead of us.

"Zero prep for breach," I ordered, "Kamile, scan for any E-X residue,"

"Scan in progress," Kamile replied

I waited about a minute before Kamile said there was none

"Do it," I said

"Breaching!" Zero shouted detonating a square breach charge and blowing the door wide open, after the smoke cleared we stormed in, but were too late, someone had dispatched the guards already.

"On your guard," I ordered as I stepped inside

Zero and I moved in passed the dead bodies and the next thing I remember was a sharp jarring in the back of my head that threw me to the ground. I then noted the MA37 barrel in my face, a Spartan taken down by a stealthy enemy, surprising? Nope, that happened a lot while we trained on Reach.

"Drop it," I heard Zero through blurry vision, he had his M6G drawn

"Zero?" said a familiar voice

My vision cleared, and I immediately noticed the BDU with the bars and arms of a Marine Corps Captain, the Eagle insignia of a Spartan, and the hedgehog looking insignia of the Mobian Freedom Fighters, which was later accepted as the Mobian Division's official insignia. His name-tape said one word that jarred my memory; SPRTN-067.

"Shadow?" Zero and I said almost simultaneously.

"C'mon get up Silver," Shadow said pulling on my arm, which prompted me to regain my footing.

"We've got one minute before Allen's pyre," Zero reminded me

"Captain," I asked, "Were there any other hostages?"

"There was…they were all killed as examples to the rest of us,"

"We'll debrief you once we get out of here, let's sprint this one," I said

That's exactly what we did, I ran straight out of the front door as the office burst into flame, which probably made all of us look like the three most badass Spartans in the UNSC. I saluted.

"Good bye Allen," I said

"Lieutenant," said the comn, it was from Red team

"Go ahead Red-one," I said

"The hostages were dead, we're falling back," Blaze replied

"Copy that, get back here, we've got the Captain,"

"Is he alright?"

"Affirmative,"

"I'll inform Zach to fall back,"

"Rodger that, Silver out,"

That was only part one of our Hell, between now and 2556 would be the most hellish two years the Spartans would face. I had no clue that the rebellion could cause this much hell, and Sigma Octanus was only the beginning


	2. Chapter 2

**SSM001**

**Chapter 2**

(Sigma Octanus: UNSC base Gamma August 31, 2554)

I was at the front of the entire squadron, waiting for Shadow outside of the debriefing room, I had the squadron at parade rest, so it was quiet. I loved silence, it gave me time to focus on what had happened, plus when it got too loud…it was irritating. The drill pad was indoors, thank Chaos, so none of us would be stuck in the summer's heat. I'd heard once that on planet Earth in some places temperatures were sporadic, especially around the summer; not that it mattered, the time of the year sometimes meant it was the height of summer some places or the dead of winter in others. I looked back over my shoulder, notable breaking my bearing, with quick realization I turned around and snapped to attention before about-facing.

"Company!" I ordered

I then listened for the Platoon commanders to reply which they did with the word, "Platoon!"

"Hut-ten-hut!" I ordered

Everyone went to attention

"At-rest," I said

They relaxed, but not very much. That was a Spartan for you, they took their jobs seriously, unlike some units, especially the Marine Regulars; I've never seen such a lack of discipline. Then again, I'm part of the most disciplined units in the universe.

Small talk broke out among us, which I tracked via the comn network on my HUD. I opened a private channel to my Platoon Commanders, Second Lieutenant Blaze and Second Lieutenant Sonic.

"Any idea how Shadow's doing?" Sonic asked

"Vitals suggest he's alive," I replied

Sonic's cross-comn screen showed the hedgehog slightly frown, I chuckled, "I'm kidding, Sonic, the Captain's vitals are as normal as ever; his brain patterns…they suggest he has a lot on his mind,"

"Why don't you see what's going on in there?" Blaze asked

"Two reasons: one; Shadow would beat me with a stick if I went into his head without permission, and two; ONI debriefs are supposed to be given without anyone knowing except the unit they belong to, and they aren't even allowed to know what was said."

Sonic growled, frustrated, "Too much damn secrecy, can't the ONI trust the best unit for one second?"

I lightly shook my head, "ONI doesn't trust anyone, hell even Halsey doesn't trust us,"

"I noticed that, still, why would she keep us in the dark? Are we that untrustworthy?"

"Doubt it," said Blaze, "ONI's just paranoid,"

"They're hiding something…I just can't put my finger on it,"

I noted Shadow's breathing rate slowed for about a second, not much later the door to the drill pad opened and in he came.

"Company!" I shouted closing the private comn

"Platoon!" ordered Sonic and Blaze at the same time

"Hut-ten-hut!"

Now we were back to attention as Shadow came in.

"Present…" I ordered

"Present…" Sonic and Blaze replied

"Arms!"

We saluted

Shadow walked towards us, his visor depolarized, he smirked, and returned our salute.

I dropped my arm and about-faced

"Order…" I said

"Order…" Sonic and Blaze said dropping their arms

"Arms!"

Everyone's arms dropped

Shadow approached me, I saluted.

"Sir, Spartan-M Charlie Company, SPARTAN-M092 -M045 and -M134, missing, sir," I said, which was true, all of the names I'd mentioned were causalities of our previous encounter with the rebels. I know what you're thinking, Spartans are the elite, the best in the business, withstood the Covenant's plasma weapons with no problem, right? Wrong! That's all propaganda, the truth is that Spartans are just like any other soldier on the field, they can die. The sad thing is, Protocol hasn't been updated since the Covenant war started… almost thirty years ago…come March, meaning that Spartans never die…they're just missing in action. That's when Shadow said it; the bit of information that would've turned a rather peaceful year into the two years of hell.

"Spartans, we've been hailed," Shadow said

My brow rose, "By whom? Who in the universe would be hailing us now?"

"None other than the missing Spartans of Gray and Black Team,"

I noted the silence among us, that's aside from the fact that Company was still at attention. I turned to them, "Company, at rest, if you have any input on this please say,"

They relaxed but the only thing that was said was from Blaze, "Are you positive it's them?"

"ONI confirmed it, they charged me with the task of recovering them,"

My gaze shifted to one of disappointment, "And they gave you transport; right?"

"Uh…no,"

"What? Why would they charge you with an interstellar mission but not provide transport?"

"The ONI…they think those seven are long dead, since Gray team has been out of contact for almost three years now, and Black team's mission was supposed to be nothing but utter suicide,"

"How long do we have?"

"Three days,"

Sonic intervened, "They're only giving us three days to find two teams of Spartans that are astronomical distances from each other who may or may not be alive; and they expect us to find our own ride?"

"Correct, fifteen, do you have a problem with that?" Shadow replied

I noted that Sonic's face scrutinized the Captain, but he silently shook his head and added, "Just want to make sure I heard right,"

"Squadron Personnel front and center," Shadow ordered

Silence for a second as Zero marched to him and saluted, "Sir Chief Warrant Officer SPARTAN M055 reporting sir,"

"New task Fifty-five, you are to get in ONI's directories and reassign a ship for this assignment, and be discreet about it," Shadow said

"Sir, yes sir!"

Shadow finally returned Zero's salute and dismissed him, Zero fell back into his Platoon, Charlie Bravo under Sonic's command. Shadow then walked towards me winked twice, the signal to private chat. Shadow's visor polarized and his out port speaker system shutdown.

"Thanks for keeping the Platoon together in my place Silv'" he said

"I was merely doing my duty sir,"

"Still thanks; but now that I'm back…"

I smirked and saluted; he returned it just as fast.

"Company!" Shadow ordered

"Platoon!" Sonic and Blaze added

"By my command Hut-ten-hut!"

We went to attention

"Company, dismissed!"

Everyone took a step back excluding Shadow, barked "Thank you, sir!" and then about-faced and left the drill pad. I lingered behind looking at him for a minute; he removed his helmet revealing the scar that ran along the side of his head, right across his temple, the debris that caused it had nearly taken his head off. A fire was where the debris came from, it happened by accident too which just made him seem like an idiot, I knew he wasn't though, those demon red eyes begged to differ. His stare could've looked Satan in the face and held their gaze until the devil himself blinked and turned away. To compliment the Captain his black fur and quills made him seem scary at times especially if he was mad enough; some of the Spartans during training had made him angry enough and claimed he started literally glowing red. That was hard to believe since I'd seen Shadow angry…thank Chaos he was mad at the enemy and not the other Spartans. That hint of rage came from SPARTAN M-121, Amanda, getting incaped by a stationary gun that ONI missed, a snag in that mission.

"Okay, you're thinking about something," Shadow said, "What is it Deputy Commander?"

"Just this mission; Gray and Black disappear for close to four years then suddenly show up again…did they even say where?" I replied

"They just gave me the coordinates, I'll leave that for a ship captain to decipher,"

"Even so, I'm don't exactly trust ONI on this little hunch; if this turns into a goose chase and the rebels figure it out…we'll have our work cut out for us,"

"Silver, you should learn to stop being so naïve, ONI has full conformation I'm sure otherwise they wouldn't have sent us to do this,"

"Alright Captain; but just so you know I still have my doubts,"

"Considered,"

I turned and left the drill pad, I thought about this, it had been nearly four years since I'd seen Jason, known as Black-Three by his teammates. A good friend of ours, I was also wondering if he knew anything about Kurt who went missing during a recon assignment when his T-pack malfunctioned. I'd asked Commander Ambrose once but he didn't reply…that was when Gamma SIII got shipped minus those who were left to decided top honors in Gamma…I still haven't seen Ash or Dante since then. I think along with his crush on Sally, Sonic also had a thing for Holly…don't get me wrong we all had our crushes in spite augmentation giving us a low sex drive. Either way, I still wanted to see the members of team Saber; Ash, Dante, and I were good friends sort of like how Shadow Sonic and I were, as in some went so far as to call us brothers. I went into the Barracks and lay in the nearest bunk, staring at the bottom of the bunk above after stripping out of my armor and dawning my BDU (Battle Dress Uniform) minus my boots.

"Some mission," I muttered under my breath.

If anything I had a feeling I wasn't going to like this one. Then again, when a Spartan gets a bad feeling usually the outcome of the feeling saves lives. That's what being a Spartan means right? Is there more?


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

(Aboard the UNSC dreadnaught _Patriot_, September 1, 2554)

I'd been working non-stop since we'd gotten on this ship, the _Patriot_ was a fairly small ship so there wasn't much we could do as far as ordnance. We were told we wouldn't get any armor or air support; also that we'd only have a certain limit of extra ground troops. Zero could only manage to throw two teams of three for this one, since the upkeep on a Mobian Spartan is…extreme according to ONI Section 3. I say bull, just because I eat more than your average soldier doesn't mean I have 'extreme upkeep'. Six Spartan-Ms would have to carry this out, and the only way we'd finish this mission on time was if there wasn't a single snag. Fat chance of that, nobody's perfect, someone, whether it is the ship captain or one of us, would screw up eventually. I pushed all doubt to the back of my mind, I had to focus on the task ahead. I couldn't help but wonder though, why would both of the teams suddenly show up out of nowhere? I could sense a trap, but for the most part I was quiet about it.

I quickly assessed what gear we had, three Pelican's, which meant we'd need to be sure not to get shot down or the only way back onto the ship would be rebel transport, and as of know I was in no mood to find a rebel base and have to storm it just to get my mission done. Damn, already one possible snag because I was just THINKING about them; fan-freaking-tastic. I went to the mess hall and spotted Blaze and the others kicking back; a very rare sight.

"So this is my team?" I asked

"Area hut-ten-hut!" Blaze snapped when she heard my voice.

"As you were," I said.

They went back to what they were doing. The six chosen for this assignment were all on the deck, Shadow Amy Sonic Sally Blaze and myself. Sonic Shadow and Sally were in the middle of a card game while Amy and Blaze socialized.

"When will we arrive at Gray Team's location sir?" I asked Shadow

"The Captain isn't sure, he left that to the ship's AI to figure out,"

I nodded, "What's the game?"

"Texas Hold 'Em," Sonic said slapping his hand down, "read 'em and weep,"

Shadow smirked staring Sonic down. They held their stare-down for about thirty seconds before Shadow set his hand down.

Sonic looked at the cards then sighed, "I guess the only luck I have is with my rifle,"

I don't remember what they had but the hands were damn close to each other.

"Attention Spartans," said the intercom, "We'll be entering Slipspace soon, please make your way to the cryo bay,"

"You heard the boss," Shadow said standing, "Deck those card, everyone down to cryo bay one."

I went with them to the cryo bay, and stripped out of my armor and BDU before stepping into the pod. I swallowed the chemical polymer and felt the chilling sensation as I was frozen for the trip.

(TIME-DATE error: Location unknown)

"Do you think you can win?"

I couldn't see anything but darkness then all of a sudden two glowing red eyes appeared under my feet. I looked myself down, no armor no BDU, not even my civilian cloths, I felt exposed and vulnerable but not helpless. I stood in a fighting stance.

"A Spartan can be killed," said the voice

"Fat chance you can kill me,"

"Really, so confident are we?"

"It would take an Armada of Covenant to kill me!"

"Maybe when you wake up you'll find out just how invincible you really are,"

I growled, "Who are you!"

"Wake up,"

"Answer me damn you!"

"Wake up,"

I felt warmer suddenly and the image of the bloody red eyes faded in a flash of steam.

(Cryo bay one, UNSC _Patriot_, September 5 2554)

I felt like I was choking, I fell out of my pod and coughed and spat until a yellow glop splattered to the deck. I tasted chemicals and gagged.

"Felling all right Lieutenant?" I heard

I looked up and saw Blaze standing over me; she was smiling. My cheeks flushed red, I don't know what my deal was though…I'd seen my fellow Spartans, both men and women, naked before but this was the first time I'd felt…odd looking at her. She was a stunning sight but she was my teammate so…it not only seemed strange but extremely awkward.

"C'mon, on your feet," She said gabbing my wrist and pulling me to my feet.

I shook my head pushing all thoughts of this incident to the back of my mind, my duty came before my own desires. I followed her to the showers and quickly cleaned myself up. Shortly after I noted the fuzz around my muzzle and grabbed one of the razors that the ship provided. Funny I thought, they could provide us with disposable razors for the men to shave their faces but not a single bit of armor essential so we can come back to the showers in one piece. I covered my entire muzzle in shaving cream and got busy. Blaze was next to my washing her face; both of us were still out of uniform, hell neither of us were dressed at all.

"So what do you think LT?" Blaze asked

I glanced at her, my face only half shaven, "Pardon?"

"What do you think about this whole thing?"

"I honestly don't know, Gray and Black go missing and now out of seemingly nowhere they decided now is a good time to show up again, it seems like a set up, I'm sensing a trap,"

Blaze shrugged her shoulders, "Only one way to find out,"

I turned to her my face speaking volumes, mainly confusion, "And what would that be?"

She smirked, "Spring the trap,"

She stepped away from the sink.

"And one last thing,"

I'd just run the blade across my face again before I looked up.

"Don't feel so bad about what happened in the Cryo bay,"

My cheeks burned, my head probably looked like a bright red Christmas light.

"I know how you feel about me; just don't let that cloud your judgment when it really counts,"

I nodded and finished shaving before heading to my locker and grabbing my BDU, over that I donned my armor. I had a feeling this was about to be the worst-case scenario; a rebel set up. I just prayed I was wrong.


	4. Chapter 4

SSM001 Ch 4

I was looking out of the observation deck. The darkness of Epsilon Eridnia was somewhat welcome, seeing as Reach was here. I smirked, and slightly bowed my head out of respect for the Spartans before us. The _Patriot _was docked around Anchor Nine, one of the space stations around Reach. My brow arced, why were we at Reach? It wasn't our objective to get to Reach, it was our objective to locate and extract Grey and Black team, not loiter around on the planet that had some of the worst memories for most soldiers in the UNSC.

"All Spartan's please report to the hanger, prep for immediate planet side operation," said the intercom

I caught a glimpse of Reach before sprinting towards the hanger and a moment later I saw the others already working on getting gear into the Pelican. Shadow wasn't present for whatever reason. I got to work helping load gear. I caught a glimpse at Sonic, he looked depressed, which was a rare thing. I knew he had an anger problem whenever one of us got into trouble and then one day he snapped. The mission was a brutal success. I know what you're thinking; what am I talking about? A _brutal _victory; what does that mean? Well…Sonic as well as most Mobians in our outfit are Chaos class; meaning we have the ability to tap into hidden powers in times of extreme stress, now as to whether that came from our augmentation process or not remains a mystery. This is one of the reasons Sonic and Kelly-089 always challenged each other to races, especially during the obstacle course challenge in training. Sonic has some kind of temper, but no where near as bad as Shadow's, still one time during an operation in the Euridnas Belt, Sonic was shot not once, not twice, but three times in the chest. If it weren't for his shielding system, he'd have probably not done this, but he…for lack of a more scientific term flipped shit. The last thing I wanted to recall was what happened to the rebels, I mean, sure they were our enemies but weren't they still human or Mobian? Let's just say that's a day all of would like to forget. Sally nudged me a bit. She had a case of 7.62mm NATO AP rounds. I move out of the way and she set the case on the ground.

"Sonic still has the Euridnas op on his mind," Sally informed me.

"I don't get it; that was a long time ago, how come he can't just leave it where it lies?" I asked

"That's because you weren't the one who nearly got court marshaled for breaking the ROE."

"Still…it doesn't make sense,"

"My Chaos, Blaze is right…you are naïve,"

I punched her in the arm, not hard, but in a friendly kind of way.

"Well Lieutenant, are you going to help?" Sally asked, she hadn't flinched since her shields blocked all of the impact.

I opened up the ammo case and frowned, all we had was AP, no shredders. Maybe were going to resupply at Reach, or we were getting a new crew, I didn't know. I turned when a tail brushed across my shoulder and there was Blaze heading into the Pelican. I smirked, she was best friend here. Shadow then walked in after her, motioning me back to counting rounds. I selected a magazine and counted the rounds in it. Fifteen rounds, the standard for the M392 Designated Marksmen Rifle. I then calculated the volume of the crate and how much room one magazine took up. The result was four hundred magazines, which put us at a total of 6000 extra rounds along with each magazine we had already loaded in our DMRs. I then moved to the next crate and opened it. This one had the magazine for the MA37 Assault Rifle. I set that aside knowing full well we need the MA5 series rifles if we wanted to even stand a chance against some of the rebel technology, which was mostly stolen.

I looked over to see Shadow motioning to Blaze. I turned up audio sensitivity.

"…Are you sure this bird will last us the whole trip?" Shadow asked

"Yes, sir; I had the engines refitted just last week and the bulkhead reinforced, it would take at least thirty plasma torpedoes to punch through it."

"I have a feeling if we got hit with a single torpedo, the second we hit the ground: we're dead,"

"I see, sir,"

"Even so…can she fly us all?"

I'd bet you my salary (and believe me that's one hell of a paycheck) that Blaze was smiling when she said this but she said, "Did ancient Mobians shit in the woods?"

"Yes…but I don't see…"

"There you go Captain,"

Ah, the rare humor coming from a Spartan, one of the rarer sights among us. I smirked slightly but that faded away when the deck suddenly shook with sudden violence. I managed to stay on feet and move to catch Blaze before she could fall completely off of her feet.

"You alright?" I asked

She nodded.

"General Quarter, all hands to battle stations!" shouted the intercom.

Sonic jumped to his feet and dashed passed all of us, grabbing his DMR and S2 from off the wall nearby and rushed to the ammunitions crate, he grabbed five extra magazines for his rifle. That was a bad sign. If he ever needed more than three…well frankly we had a problem. The hanger shuddered and the aft bulkhead sparked then failed. The hanger exploded as the atmosphere vented. The sound was ten times louder than a frag grenade and two of our three drop ships were sucked out into the vacuum of space along with ammo crates and our extra weapons. The hole then suddenly filled with a strange looking ship, it had a sparkling blue energy shield that filled in the hole, and stopped the air from rushing out.

"Boarding parties!" Sally shouted.

I rushed to the nearest fallen DMR and grabbed it. The rebels burst through their shield and opened fire. Bullets ricocheted off of my shield as I ducked behind our last remaining Pelican. Shadow and Sonic broke right and Sally Blaze and Amy broke left with lightening speed. I returned fire and scored twice with two back-to-back headshots. There was a reason I preferred the DMR to most weapons.

"C'mon this is too easy!" Sonic shouted, "Give me a challenge!"

I heard the rapid fire (or as rapid as it could get) of Sonic's sniper rifle. He was firing as fast as the bolt could cycle rounds.

"Hanger eighteen, this is _Patriot _bridge, what's your status, over?" shouted the comn.

"We've been engaged!" I shouted back, "Multiple boarding parties in the hanger, sir!"

"Hold the line Spartans, don't let them get to the bridge,"

Rebels shouted information back and forth to each other, reporting our positions.

"Shadow, contact by the overturned weapons locker!" I shouted

"Rodger target sighted!" Shadow shouted back. His MA37 hosed fire. I managed to sneak a peak around the Pelican's cockpit. Bullets sparked off of the armor and a plasma bolt splashed over my helmet, all I saw was white for a few seconds and I felt as if my face had just been kissed by the corona of Sol. I pulled back. When my vision cleared I silently thanked the brass for our armor's shielding, or else my helmet would've been fused to my face…my cold dead face at any rate.

"Under fire!" I yelled.

"Laying down suppressing fire!" Sally shouted.

My shields wined at me, three quarters depleted, over that I could hear the steady hum of automatic fire. I looked up towards the control tower, there was Sonic. He looked almost as if he was laughing. I didn't blame him, with his superior firing position and every rebel that dare to come out of the boarding ship and not run straight to cover dying with in seconds of each other, I wasn't surprised. Though I knew Sonic fairly well; he was like another Spartan I knew, he'd kill the enemy but respected them…he also however talked a lot, sometimes to a point of annoyance. I shook my head and focused more on the battle. Looking back over towards the overturned locker, I spotted a splash of blood from it as bullets rained down on it. I figured the contact had been neutralized, a solid kill.

"Silver, contact at your three o' clock!" Blaze shouted

I spun to my right and dove to the ground as radiated death whizzed over my head and exploded against the wall behind me. I leveled my rifle and squeezed the trigger. The rebel flinched and charged me. I stood in a crouch and fired again. He flashed blue…wait blue? I felt the full force of a Fuel Rod Cannon being brought down like a hammer on my head. My shields burst like a neon yellow bubble and I staggered back. The Elite seemed to smirk at me as I regained my balance and it dropped back leveling the cannon as it did. For a moment I knew without a shadow of a doubt I was going to die when out of nowhere the Elite was knocked down from behind. It managed to roll over and caught a glimpse of what death looks like. I saw the gleaming steel of an M6 combat knife, Spartan standard issue. The blade punched through the Elite's shield like it was stabbing through butter. There was a spray of purple and the Elite shouted in agony. The Spartan atop it was Blaze, she twisted her wrist and ripped the blade free, its serrated edges coated in the aliens blood. She stood and nodded at me. I gritted my teeth, but let it go. Sure that was the tenth time she'd saved my life but it bothered me that I couldn't get by without a team. All Spartan had to be ready for a worst-case-scenario and that let me know I wasn't ready.

"I owe you one Blaze…thanks,"

"Don't…"

I saw a flicker of motion, leveled my DMR, and fired twice. The Elite behind Blaze that would've impaled her on the tip of its Energy Sword staggered backwards and tripped over one of the ammo crates that hadn't been sucked outside. Blaze turned around and jumped back when a plasma grenade sped by and stuck me dead center of the chest. I dropped into Armor-Lock. I saw Blaze level her MA37 and open fire. The Spec Ops Elite's armor cracked and failed in a spray of purple. I heard a loud crash. At first, I thought the hanger had been breached by another boarding party, but I thought twice when a concussion rocked me to my strong-as-steel bones. I was thrown on my back, my vision went white again my ears were ringing and my head jarred forward after hitting the deck. I tried to stand but couldn't until my vision cleared and shields recharged. I almost blacked out getting up.

"You alright, Silver?" Shadow asked

"You're vitals just pinged KIA," Sonic commented.

"I'm alright…just…watch out for stray plasma grenades," I said, trying not to sound angry.

Two lights flashed cool blue on my display. The rebel shouts seemed distant but one word clarified why.

"Retreat!" someone shouted.

"Keep hitting them, they're falling back!" Shadow ordered

I emerged from cover and opened fire with my DMR, this time the select fire switch was set to full automatic. I fired short controlled bursts into the mash of rebels heading back to their drop ships.

"Stand down, Spartans," Shadow ordered, "Secure the ordnance!"

We followed as ordered. I helped Blaze with securing the Pelican to the deck. By then the rebel ship had started to disengage from the side of the hanger. We loaded as much gear as we could onto the ship since it was the only thing that was actually attached to the deck. The rebel ship's nose had ripped free and the hanger explosively decompressed again. This time all the air in hanger was sucked out into the vacuum of space.

"Chaos that was close…" Amy said, she set her MA37 on her back once things had settled down.

"But at the same time odd," Blaze commented

"Explain Blaze," Shadow ordered

"Why would rebels want to attack a ship like ours, sir? It just seems strange,"

"That's guerilla tactics for you Lieutenant, you attack when you're least expected to,"

"But," I interjected, "The attacks should be against weaker targets,"

Sonic grunted in agreement.

"Perhaps their intel was off," Sally commented

That phrase always worried me; intel was off…the last time that happened to us we almost lost the fight…almost. The Euridnas Op was that fight…the very op we wanted to all forget. I'd go into it but ONI protocol won't allow it. I set my DMR on my back as did the rest of us with our respective weapons.

Shadow keyed the comn, "Hanger eighteen to bridge all contacts neutralized,"

"Copy that Captain, but we've got a bigger problem…prep for immediate deployment to the surface of Reach,"

"Yes, sir," Shadow replied, "Interrogative, what's happening on Reach?"

"The rebels have taken over,"


	5. Chapter 5

SSM001 Ch 5

My mind was racing as we reloaded what gear we had. No one said anything but I could tell just by the thought traffic that circulated through the hanger that everyone…especially Shadow was shocked at this. Of all of us in that hanger it was Sally who spoke first.

"Do you think it's true, sir?" She asked

"I don't know," Shadow replied with a sigh after, "I hope not,"

I don't know what Shadow was thinking only because he was the only one in our outfit who could actually sense when I was in his head, therefore he could block me out…that's the Ultimate Spartan for you.

"Captain…are you sure about this though? You know Tange isn't going to like this,"

Shadow turned to me, "The General is the least of my concerns Lieutenant; I'm more worried about Reach…if it falls…"

"It won't, sir, we'll make sure of it," Sonic cut in.

"For the sake of the eight billion civilians down there, Sonic…I hope you're right,"

Nothing else was said after that, instead Shadow left the hanger leaving us to clean up the battle zone. That endeavor consisted of taking the bodies off of the flight line and picking up every last 7.62mm casing that had fallen to the floor, and boy were there a lot of them; if I recall correctly there were over a thousand rounds that were fired. I also had to get every weapon that had been sprawled all over the metal battle field and bring them back to the armory, though these mostly consisted of stolen Covenant tech. I wondered exactly how the rebels had even stood a chance or were insane enough to challenge the Covenant and win. Either that or they went spec ops on them. No matter how I thought about it, neither course of action seemed to fit. I also had to wonder why they wanted Reach. Sure it's shipyards were the best in the Navy but when you have the best techs you usually have the best Marines guarding them. So getting onto the surface and being able to present a notable threat was one thing, but taking on a contingent of Marines was a whole other thing. I remembered when Reach fell in 2552…I cursed the Covenant for every dead man women and child civilian or otherwise…Mobian or human. Reach was my home for the better part of six years. The only other places in the galaxy that could match that were Onyx, my training grounds and where I learned of my true purpose and Mobius…my birthplace. I looked up at the others and still couldn't read their expressions; sometimes I hated MJOLNIR armor, but mostly I love the suit…it allowed me to keep my head on more occasions than I can recall. Shadow had returned to the hanger to I guess help with the clean up when he looked up at me after retrieving a stolen BR55HB RDS; he tossed it to me.

"Spoils of war Lieutenant, that guy was your kill," Shadow said after I'd caught it and looked back at him.

I wasn't sure anyone understood that notion. The thing was beat to hell, its red-dot site was off site by a quarter inch to the left, the metal was scratched and dented like the last time it was cleaned was the day after it came off the lines. Since then it was abused and ill taken care of, damned rebels, they treated what the stole like absolute crap; it irritated me to see such a rifle so beaten up. I checked the mag, it had ten of its original thirty-two rounds left. I cleared the chamber and a round popped out and clattered to the deck. As quickly as it hit the deck I scooped it up. It was a tracer round 7.62 NATO. Peculiar, I always thought they used tracers for anti-armor, why use it against infantry? I stuffed it, now I knew the rumors of the rebels using tracers were true and that made them all the more dangerous. I at least was happy to see that they didn't use sable rounds…even if we armor locked we'd still be killed…high heated, enough to melt through starship armor. I set that thought aside and decided that before we headed down to the surface to test my new spoil. At the range, I looked down the red dot, flipped the safety on again and removed it, the damned light was bugging the crap out of me so I flipped up the iron sites. After that I flipped off the safety again and reacquired my target. After a few breathing exercises I slowly squeezed the trigger. I had the thing fully pulled and hadn't move a centimeter. I pointed the rifle up, a misfire, what did I expect? This rifle as beat up as it was actually didn't surprise me that it didn't fire. I ejected the mag and cleared the chamber…that's where I ran into a problem. Without warning, the round exploded out of the chamber and struck the ceiling with full force. I looked up unpleased; that was probably the reason its previous owner died, critical failure, in combat that would be it. I shook my head and cleared the chamber again to be sure that a second round hadn't been lodged in place. Nothing popped out, I flipped on the safety; I'd get it cleared to take home when this was over. I went to the ship's armory and met Petty Officer Vector there, he was our outfit's weapons supplier; he could tell you everything about any firearm in the UNSC, antique or otherwise. I set my newly acquired rifle on his desk. The Petty Officer jumped up and saluted. I promptly returned it with one of my own.

"What do you make of this Petty Officer?" I asked

Vector's reptilian claws wrapped around the weapon as he examined it, he pulled the action open to make sure it wasn't loaded, which I had done prior to this moment.

"I make out a piece of junk rifle, Lieutenant, where'd you get it?" he replied

"The flight line in Hanger 18, we got jumped by some damned boarding party,"

Vector notably sighed, "Damned rebels they never did learn how delicate these things were. Do you plan on keeping this, sir?"

"You guessed it,"

"I wouldn't recommend it, sir, in this condition I'd be worried about critical failure,"

"Yeah about that…"

"So that's why Master Chief Storm reported an ambush in the mess hall?"

I glanced at the ceiling, the mess hall was above the range which I thought was a bad idea, but I guess the techs didn't think so.

"The round went that far did it?"

Vector nodded, "I'll tell you what Lieutenant, give me a week and I can get this thing ready for combat again,"

"Thanks Vec…oh and you can have the dot site, you know I hate those damned things,"

"That's RDS number five I've gotten from you, sir,"

I left and went down to the hanger; the guys were still loading gear, it had been only a few minutes since we'd been boarded. I wasn't sure what the _Patriot_ was going to do about Reach being invaded. That's when I found Shadow on the flight line, he was examining where the rebels had breached the hanger but when we repelled them they left.

"Lieutenant," he said then motioned me to come over to him. I did. If there was one thing I've learned over the years it was never ignore a direct order.

"I need you to do something for me," he told me

"Anything sir,"

"I need you to translate a dream I had for me,"

I nodded; I hated translating dreams for people, usually they weren't dreams…they were nightmares. Reluctantly, I set a hand on Shadow's head, he'd removed his helmet, I shut my eyes, and focused my powers trying to access his dreams. It wasn't difficult.

The dream went like this; I was on some kind of space station and running, I spotted Sonic and Amy also…I remembered this place, Rebel Outpost Three-Nine-Delta, somewhere in the Eridnas belt. I saw the rebels chasing us down…I don't recall Sonic or Amy being with me, I was with Blaze and Sally at the time. That's when I realized this wasn't me, it was Shadow, I was Shadow. I watched as Sonic Amy and I did what we did best kill the enemy, until we were backed into a corner. I suddenly doubled over, I felt no pain since this was a dream, a memory actually. Amy returned fire and Sonic took three rounds in the chest. The next thing I knew all hell broke loose, Sonic erupted into Darkness form and with a simple wave of his hand the rebels were flung in every direction and landed in such mangled heaps it was hard to believe they even had a remote chance of survival. He then turned to Amy and I. He flung a bolt of energy at the wall and blew it straight to hell. In the next room over was the real me Blaze and Sally. The Shadow me stood up and leveled his signature DMR and opened fire on the approaching rebels. Dark Sonic simply wave his hands again. I wanted to yell at Sonic, wanted to tell him to ease up not everyone here needed to die. The real me did, and Sonic turned to me. He flicked his wrist and my armor's shields exploded in a flash of yellow sending me through a wall. The Shadow me turned to Sonic shouted something and was rewarded with a fist to the face. The blow glanced off of Shadow's shields and sent him to the ground. I opened my eyes and saw Shadow's face.

"What do you make of it Lieutenant?" he asked me

"A horrid memory, sir, one that's better forgotten," I said

"Do you think it could happen again?"

I glanced at Sonic who was checking his sniper rifle. I turned back to Shadow, "I don't know, sir?"

"Well I've got a plan…it's risky, and we'd have to let ONI know we're scrubbing the Gray and Black rescue,"

"Anything for Reach, sir, I'm all for it,"

"Gods I wish I had a million others like you Lieutenant, head up to the mess, take a load off, tell the team to take a break,"

"Yes sir, good luck with getting through to those spooks,"

"Thanks Silver,"

Scrubbing a mission wasn't something we did very often, but in this particular instance we had to, if Reach fell again…we'd be stuck without our much-needed ships. I wasn't about to let that go unanswered.


End file.
